Dead Center

by Bill Noel

  “Oh,” I said, sounding more like Dude each day. “I hate to ask, but should get it on the table. Could it have been Dude?”

  She sat her mug down with a clunk and scowled at me. “I thought he was your friend. How could you say that?”

  I was afraid she’d react that way. I sipped my coffee, glanced around the room, and turned back to her. “Put on your attorney’s hat and look at the situation like you would if someone accused of a crime came to you and asked you to defend him. Wouldn’t it be prudent to look at the crime from all angles, look at all possible suspects, and look for any connection to the crime to be able to defend your client?”

  She continued to stare, and nodded.

  “Wouldn’t Dude have motive to kill the alleged assassin?”

  “I don’t know the adult Dude. Why would he?”

  I refrained from pointing out I had never heard adult and Dude mentioned in the same breath. “He’s protective.”

  “He was that way as a kid. I don’t know about now.”

  “I do, and heard someone say he would do anything to protect you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and Dude is my friend. I can’t imagine him putting a gun to Panella’s head and pulling the trigger unless he was provoked or Panella pulled a gun on him and Dude had to defend himself. That doesn’t mean he didn’t. He told me the other day his employees irritated him so much at times he’d like to shoot them with his AK-47. He was teasing, but until he said it, I didn’t know he owned a gun, much less an AK-47. The point being, he’s a man of few words, and I suspect, many secrets.”

  “If what you’re hinting at is true, how would he have known why that guy was here for me?”

  “Good question. How would anyone have known? The fact is unless the killing was a robbery gone bad or the result of a disagreement, someone found out and didn’t want him to succeed.”

  “I still can’t see Dude doing it. And before you ask by sounding like you weren’t trying to ask, I didn’t do it.”

  “I know.”

  She reached across the table and patted my hand. “Thank you. How do you know? I have the strongest motive, and I knew someone was out to get me.”

  “True, yet remember the morning I found the body.”

  “Like I could forget.”

  I pointed to the next table. “You went right over there where I was sitting.”

  She glanced at the table where we had met.

  “And what did you ask me?”

  “Several things. I have a tendency to ask multiple questions.”

  “You did ask a few. The two that stuck with me were: Did I think the body was closer to your back door or to the door to First Light, and would I describe him.”

  “From that, I assume you think if I killed him I would have known where he was?”

  “And what he looked like.”

  “I still have my lawyer’s hat on, and to be honest, those two things wouldn’t carry much weight if the prosecutor had a preponderance of evidence, albeit circumstantial, against me. They would argue that I was asking to see if you saw anything, possibly the killer—me.”

  “Maybe, but when you came in here that morning, you’d just learned about the death, and those were two emotionally-charged questions. They weren’t you setting up a defense.”

  She smiled, the first time this morning. “Thanks for thinking I’m not that devious. I’m going to take it as a compliment, although they would have thrown me out of law school for that character flaw.” Her smile faded and she looked around the room. “That doesn’t let Dude off the hook.”

  “No.”

  I returned her smile and then turned serious. “Let me throw out another scenario. What if you weren’t the intended victim?”

  Russ Vick interrupted. “Hi.” He was wearing one of his off-color T-shirts and a denim coat, and standing behind Barb. “Don’t mean to interrupt, Chris. It is Chris, isn’t it?”

  I had seen the back of the burly T-shirt maven on the other side of the room with two men when we came in. I started to tell him he should put Don’t mean to interrupt on one of his T-shirts, since he’d perfected the technique. Instead, I said, “Hi, Russ. Good to see you.”

  Barb’s head was twisted around to see who I was talking to. “Russ,’ I said, “have you met my friend Barbara Deanelli? She owns Barb’s Books.”

  Russ looked toward the door and glanced at Barb. She craned her neck to see him and smiled.

  “Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  One of the men at the door yelled, “Come on, Russ.”

  Russ smiled and said, “Would stay and talk, but got to catch up with my friends. Wanted to say hi. And, oh yeah, Chris, if you see Charles tell him I need an answer. He’ll know what it’s about.”

  I hadn’t recalled inviting him to stay and talk, so wasn’t that distraught he had to go, nor did I feel the need to tell him about Charles.

  “Nice meeting you,” Barb said as Russ headed to the exit.

  I doubted he heard her as I watched him leave the restaurant with his friends.

  I said, “Russ owns SML Shirts and Folly Tease, the two new T-shirt stores on Center Street.”

  “I’ve seen him around. I’ve not been in his stores, but have seen some of his T-shirts on my customers. I imagine the Folly Beach city fathers are thrilled Folly Tease is bringing near-obscenity to the wholesome families vacationing here.”

  I smiled. “We all contribute to society.”

  “Yes,” Barb said. “I also suspect his stores are far more successful than the new bookstore on Folly.”

  “And that bookstore is far more successful than the photo gallery before it.”

  She grinned. “And now you can sit around and drink coffee while I’m slaving away selling books.”

  I shrugged. “Before we were interrupted, I started to—”

  “Hey, Chris.” Interruption number two. “Hi, Barbara.”

  Marc Salmon, one of Folly’s city council members and one of the island’s leading gossip spreaders, was standing where Russ had been.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Of course. I didn’t point out the obvious. “I see you know Barb.”

  “My wife is one of her best customers.”

  Marc and his fellow councilmember, Houston, spend an hour or more each weekday in the Dog. It was unusual to see him here on Sunday, yet not surprising. Rumors don’t take the weekend off, so he had to make an appearance.

  “True,” Barb said. “Mr. Salmon’s wife devours romance novels like a bat gobbles mosquitos.”

  “Please call me Marc. I’m glad your store’s here. Miss B. was driving me to the poorhouse with the new books she was buying. Used’s the way to go. It’s also great we have a new, positive business on the island.”

  I wondered if it was a cut at Folly Tease.

  “Gotta get to the grocery and home,” Marc said. “Good to see you. Oh, Chris, before I go, rumor has it Charles Fowler and his gal friend might be moving.”

  You’re slipping, Marc, I thought. Charles and Heather leaving wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have this morning with the councilmember. “I’ll check.”

  “You do that, Chris,” he said and was gone.

  Barb asked, “What’s the deal with Charles and Heather? He’s not saying one of my best customers is leaving Folly?”

  I told her that her customer was not leaving, he was gone. I gave her a five-minute version of a story about Charles and me that would take days to tell. She listened and interrupted with a couple of good questions. I didn’t tell her about Russ’s job offer for Charles, now a moot point.

  “I’m sorry to hear it. I wish I could have a friend as good as Charles has been to you.”

  I blinked a tear out of my eye, wiped it away, and made a joke about how the sun was in my eye. Barb pretended to believe me and asked, “What’s a possible scenario where I’m not the target?”

  I looked around expecting another interruption. None appeared. “W
hat if Lawrence Panella intended to kill someone from the church? The body wasn’t any closer to your door than it was to First Light. Have you met Preacher Burl Ives Costello?”

  “I went to a few of his services and he’s been in the store looking for used bibles. We’ve not talked beyond a polite greeting. Why?”

  “He’s a good man and is doing a great job with his non-traditional church.”

  “Meeting on the beach was refreshing.”

  “Preacher Burl has come to me to ask if I could check into a delicate situation.”

  “By delicate, I suppose that means you aren’t going to tell me about it.”

  I smiled. “If I ever get in legal trouble, I want you as my lawyer.”

  “I hope that day never comes.”

  “Me too. No details, but the situation involves one of his members whose past is not available for public consumption.”

  “Witness protection program?”

  “I didn’t say that. His member has reason to think Lawrence Panella was here to revenge something the church member may have said or done that got the person who hired him in a heap of trouble.”

  Barb looked out the window, down at the rest of her food, and at me. “And my hippie brother’s main selling point for Folly was it was a laid back, happy place; not his exact words, that was the gist. He forgot to mention the murder per-square-foot ratio.”

  “Not be chamber of commerce friendly,” I said, channeling Dude.

  Barb laughed, her hazel eyes glowed in the sunlight that allegedly had caused my eyes to water.

  I glanced at my watch and realized it was a half hour until First Light’s morning service.

  “Want to go to church?” I said, and wondered where that had come from.

  “Think book buyers will wait until this afternoon for me to open the store.”

  “Don’t know about them. Photo buyers never kicked in the door to buy anything when I was away.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I had attended church on a regular basis until I was in my twenties. I stopped going one Sunday and forgot to go back—f or four decades. My introduction to First Light came when I nearly got killed when someone ran down one of the church’s followers, killing him within inches from where he and I had been standing.

  It was chilly so I glanced in the First Light foul weather sanctuary to make sure the morning’s service had not been moved indoors. It was empty and Barb and I continued down Center Street and past the Folly Pier to the opening to the beach where I saw Preacher Burl. He would’ve been hard to miss in his white robe made from a bed sheet. His arms were outspread and from the rear looked like a kite readying itself to be pulled skyward by the breeze. He was standing behind a repurposed, school lectern and facing fifteen or so people who were moving toward the folding chairs in the sand.

  Charles wasn’t there to point out I was late, while Barb and I took seats in the back row. I knew, either by name or face, most of the others. When everyone was seated, Preacher Burl asked us to “silence thy portable communication devices,” and to join in singing a hymn out of a photocopied songbook. The group warbled through the hymn and Preacher Burl said, “What a joyful noise to the Lord.”

  I grinned as I remembered when he had told me the definition of joyful didn’t contain the words pretty, pleasant, or good. Burl’s flock showed an overabundance of joy and a dearth of singing ability. It was the thought that counted.

  Burl was a master at preaching to the common man. He was down to earth, translated the complex parts of the Bible into language everyone from an illiterate street person to a college professor could understand and relate to. That talent, combined with the uniqueness of meeting in the midst of people walking dogs, playing Bocce ball, building sandcastles, and sunbathing, helped First Light meet the religious needs of many whose shadows would never darken the doors of traditional houses of worship. In addition to his homilies touching all comers, they tended to be long-winded and redundant which gave me time to focus less on what he was saying, but on who was there. An advantage of being on the back row was being able to see everyone. Today, that consisted of regulars and for the first time I noticed Douglas Garfield. He wore his scowl but was focused on each word out of the preacher’s mouth. Dude was on the other end of the back row and nodded toward Barb and me, and his two employees sat in the sand behind him. I didn’t know if they were his bodyguards or were church goers, which, if so, would surprise, no, would shock me.

  I also did a double take when I caught the profile of the man who had been in Barb’s store several times. I wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t kept glancing our way.

  The service ended with the last verse of a horrific rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and Dude was quick to welcome his sister—half-sister, fractional sister, whatever—to First Light and ask her why she was here.

  She explained she and I were having breakfast and I invited her.

  “Woe, Chrisster be marketing for God.”

  Rocky and Stephon had been trailing Dude and moved beside him. Stephon looked at Barb and said, “Good to see you.” He looked at me and snarled. We continued to bond. Stephon told Dude they were headed to the surf shop and the two of them left. Burl joined the group and said he remembered Barb from his earlier visits and said he was thrilled she joined the group this morning. Douglas Garfield had started our way, kicked the sand, turned, and slinked away.

  Dude asked Barb if she wanted to walk with him to the surf shop. She looked over at me and gave an almost imperceptible shrug, I nodded, and she said, “That would be nice.”

  I was glad to see she and Dude were spending time together. From what she’d said, it was clear she needed more friends, and Dude, in addition to being her half-brother, could be a good one.

  My gladness ended when Burl said, “Is it true Brother Charles and the darling Sister Heather are no longer among the residents of Folly.”

  I told him it was.

  “Folly will never be the same.”

  “You’re right, Preacher.” I looked around to see if the stranger who had been in Barb’s was nearby. He wasn’t. “Burl, do you know who the man was who sat in the row in front of us on the other side? He had a brown coat and a black scarf.”

  Burl looked toward the seat where the man had been seated. “Don’t recall his name. I’m bad about names, you know. He arrived a few weeks ago. I try to meet each newcomer at the end of the service. He was here three weeks ago and told me his name, which I forgot as soon as he walked away. He said he’d come from somewhere up North and was looking forward to our warmer weather.”

  “Did he say where up North and what he was doing here?”

  “No to both questions, and I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. If, or when, the gentleman wishes to disclose details of his life, I will listen. If he seeks spiritual guidance, I will oblige.”

  “I understand.” Understood yet wished Burl had picked up some of the inquisitive habits of my friends.

  “He seems like a pleasant sort,” Burl added. “I doubt he has anything to hide and would be glad to disclose the answers to your questions upon your inquiring.”

  My phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was fortunate whoever was calling hadn’t tried fifteen minutes earlier since I hadn’t silenced my portable communications device.

  “Guess what I got?” came the distant, tinny voice of Charles. I could barely hear him with the ocean’s roar in the background.

  “Diphtheria,” I said, both in the spirit of my friend and to combat the irritating habit of most everyone who calls me skipping courteous greetings.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Hi, Charles, what did you get?”

  “I’m now in the twenty-first century. I’ve got a handy-dandy cell phone, with a camera, and a texting thing, and can tweet, whatever that is.”

  I had pestered Charles for nine years to join nine out of ten Americans who owned cell phones, and now he moves away and gets one. Progress, a
lthough irritating and belated, is still progress.

  “Glad to hear it.” I covered my other ear to block some of the ocean sounds that were making it hard to hear. “Did you make it to Nashville?”

  “I am standing smack dab in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum right here on 5th Avenue in downtown Music City, USA.”

  “Okay. Did Heather make it?”

  “She said I could stand out here and talk all day if I wanted to. She already went in, said she’d waited all her life to be this close to country music fame and couldn’t wait another piddlin’second.”

  “Found somewhere to live?”

  I waved bye to Burl and walked away from the beach. It was still hard hearing Charles and I wanted a private spot to talk.

  “We’re in a motel. Got two appointments to look at apartments this afternoon after Heather sniffs around every square inch of the Hall of Fame. Both apartments are in walking distance of downtown.”

  “That’s great,” I said, although my heart wasn’t in it. I was happy for Heather and therefore happy for Charles.

  “Guess what else? No diseases this time.”

  “Heather’s signed with Sony Records, is appearing on the Grand Ole Opry, and you’ve opened a private detective agency.”

  “And people think I live in a fantasy world. You’re not far off, though. We met with Kevin Starr last night at Starbucks. He was excited to see her and gave her the name of the man to contact at the Bluebird about singing open-mic night. She tried calling last night, but he won’t be in until tomorrow.”

  A couple of things didn’t sound right. “Why didn’t you meet Starr at his office?”

  “He said he meets all his artists near where they are rather than the inconvenience of shaving them come to his office.”

  I didn’t like the sound of it, but let it go. Who was I to step on Heather’s boundless enthusiasm?

  “If Starr is representing Heather, why didn’t he contact the Bluebird?”

  “That felt funny to me. He said since he wasn’t contractually tied to Heather yet, it’d be better for her to do it.”